MIn Pins in the making of Marley & Me the puppy years.

Hi All,

If ever you were wondering if a Minature Pincher puppy is for you I would like to take a little of your time and share what a well bred Min Pin can add to enrich your lives. Ocean got her name because she flew from Halifax to Vancouver to join our home. I saw a young Min Pin at the dog show in New Brunswick and I just had to find out where he came from. He was social, handsome and outgoing. I had not seen such a well temperamented Min Pin before and knew that my next Min Pin would come from Applea kennels. The next challenge would be to find a male that would complement Ocean's stellar personality, steady nerves and workability.  I saw 'Zack' at the Tradex Dog Show in Abbotsford and he too had that outgoing, social stability in a truely handsome package. He has won many Best in Show qualifications throughout North America. Together they have made, what I believe is, a wonderful  well balanced litter of puppies. There are still two puppies available for sale at this time. Inquiries  should be sent to czechmate1@shaw.ca 

Tony and I were planning to have a Youtube video of the movie work that Ocean and her daughter, Minute, co-starred in. For anyone that is interested, the movie is titled: Marley & Me, the puppy years. It was locally filmed here in Vancouver during the fall of 2010. If you have kids, this is a great little kid friendly adventure, if not, watch it for the dog work. All of the animal actors' behaviours are entertaining... Unfortunately, Fox TV put the stop to our video before it was even uploaded.  ;-(  

So, instead of amazing video magic from Tony, you are stuck with me trying to explain the few photos we have (hard to be working and handling dogs behind the camera and take photos at the same time).

The 'Woofgang' Min Pins are painted as the 'dark characters', as so many of our animal stars are, and then we discover that they are fun characters. We were given 6 weeks of training time to get 6 Min Pins camera ready with all the requested behaviours. Over the 5 weeks of filming, Ocean and Minute were in every Min Pin shot throughout the movie. Kat made a brief appearance on the treadmill (how she loved that thing) and Molly for most part was the "Axel" character.

Ocean and, her daughter, Minute

Minute is 9 months old when we started preparing for this show.   

Minute trying to make her Mom, Ocean, share the heat from the bottom of the fridge.

And Molly, in our studio trailer

Tony with Molly and Minute

Some of you might think that 6 weeks to train behaviours is a great deal of time until you understand the breed and the behaviours. Try to imagine repeatedly putting any animal in, what they see as, uncomfortable situations, with a camera crew and multiple other animal and human actors performing their lines and...... well, I think you might be starting to understand the picture.... Only sound, well temperamented animals are able to adjust to the stress of movie making.

The 6 girls: (from Left to right) Minute (already coloured),
Molly, Ocean, Stoney, Rosie and Kat.

This whole show is focused on puppies competing in an agility contest. The production company searched far and wide to find Min Pins that were already able to compete in the agility ring to no avail. So I needed to train 6 Min Pins to run the course (just remember, that there is no predicting what the director or the set will allow so the training has got to be for any configuration or equipment that is available).

Never having done agility before with our dogs, I did a lot of research with the local agility groups. One thing they all agreed on was, 'It will take you and the dog at least 6 months to be ready to compete'. I had 6 weeks to be camera ready!!!! and not 1 dog but 6!!! I quickly weeded out 2 that would be back up only in case of extreme emergency and then I'm not sure what I could have asked them to do....

Ocean

Ocean makes this look easy

close up of Ocean

The tire is even easier for Ocean 

In addition to the agility course training the Min Pin team needed to learn to 'hit a mark' (a spot on the floor where the camera is focused and the dogs must hit it precisely each time). This is made even harder because as soon as one dog moves everybody thinks it's a union coffee break and they all break from their marks. 

They also needed to have the normal big dog behaviours like sit, stand, speak, down, etc.... Now take a crowded set with cameras, people and other dog action and more happening and ask a Min Pin to perform takes a great deal of fortitude. Ocean and Minute were the most able and in the end Minute ran the course on camera three times, once as each member of the Min Pin team. Ocean would have done it as well but the director was hoping to splice the 'run' incase she wasn't able to do everything on Minute's first take (Tony was the 'trainer' in the movie (look for him there).

Having the 'Woofgang' running on the treadmill was in the original script. All we had to do was knock the dust off of the one in garage to get things started....

Tony with Ocean and Minute in their harnesses. In the back
are the 6 Min Pin condos.

Oh, and there's more..... Tony really got involved as the behavioural 'asks' got more intricate.....

Production company, "Hummm, do you think you could get the Woofgang to tow a bag or two of dog food across the agility field?"

Tony, "No problem", the way he does so often and he makes the impossible possible. It starts with the right gear.... in this case harnesses like the sled dogs use only really really small... then a small tire and then more than one Min Pin and then..... you have it as you see it on the movie, the Woofgang dragging a double stack of (movie prop) dog food across the agility course.

A lucky shot with a poorly lit training area.

Another crazy 'ask', "Do you think we can get a Min Pin to dive into the pool and swim across it to the other side?" Reasonable question? Min Pins are kind of like cats... not at all crazy about the water. So once again Tony says, "No problem". What that man gets me into sometimes.....

So here we have Ocean prepping for her camera debut as the diving Min Pin....

Ocean made a splash on film day too!

Last minute rehearsal with Ocean

More last minute rehearsing with Ocean on the weave poles.

Tony is all dressed up and somewhere to go ;-D

A special thanks to the human Woofgang team. They were remarkable folks to work with.

Alex Zahara, as Herr von Weiselburger, with Molly

Geoff Gustafson, as Henkel, with Minute

Marie West, as Helga, with Ocean

Sandy Potter, Master Groomer, colourist, judge and more has kindly brought her skills to our garage to match Ocean's look and colour all the red Min Pins black and tan. 

OK, can you tell who was black and tan and who was red before Sandy got here?
What an amazing job!!!! Thank you!!

I hope that if you are interested in seeing what fun looks like when you add a Min Pin to your world take the time to watch Marley & Me: the puppy years.

Enjoy!!